1656. EBB to Angela Owen
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 9, 56–58.
50 Wimpole Street
July 21. 1844
My very dear Angela
Try to believe the simple truth,—that this long silence after your kindest of letters has a meaning precisely contrary to the one you probably ascribe to it. It seems a contradiction, .. but if I had not been sensitive to the kindness you expressed to me—nay, if I had not been deeply ‘touched’ by it, & very deeply, I shd have written directly. It wd have been easy to write & say that I cd not see you. But as I read your letter I felt all the old love which goes faithfully by your name, spring up like a fountain—and I knew that if I offended all the world by it, I must see you & tell you so! Then you will understand the sort of difficulty I was in, just at the time when troops of Butlers were revolving, .. hovering about .. with ‘right & proper’ nominal wishes to see me, which I ventured to resist aunt-agonistically. I was forced to wait & let the actual circumstances modify themselves … to be ‘right & proper’ also. Do you understand? It is not surely the accident of relationship that makes love, .. yet it happens again & again, that persons who are aware that I am forced to be tranquil, & far too weak for society, .. ask to see me, just as an idiom of cousinship or relationship generally. All which persons, though as indifferent as possible, about me, wd be annoyed at the idea of my admitting others to their exclusion!! These are the minor mysteries of Human Nature,—& you will see at a glance that whatever visits your dear kindness may impel you to pay me, you must let pass in a discreet silence, for the sake of others. I love you dearest Angela, .. & better because gratefully, since you wrote last. That you shd write so kindly, & think so kindly, brought the tears to my eyes. I had thought (do forgive me) that those rose trees of life with which God has planted you round, had intercepted <the view of> [1] some of your fainter old affections, .. & that if (for instance) you cared for me a little, it was only by a passing thought or feeling, & not what I dared recognize for love. My loving you, was altogether different. I was not shut up in rose trees, .. & the trees from which I had my shadow & delight formerly, had lost (some of them) their greenest branches—— But this is growing sadder than I meant to be. We all of us have better than we deserve of the divine giver.
I meant to thank you again & again my dear, dear Angela for your tender words, & for the soothing pleasure they afforded to me,—& also to tell you that I will see you soon if you are able to come soon. I do not say “directly”, although I wished to say directly, .. but you were absent when I became first able to say it, and I am using all my strength just now in concluding the labour of getting through the press (both of England & America) a new collection of poems in two volumes. This has been hard work, & necessary to be worked at with both hands .. so that I have not one free at the moment—but I shall soon have done my part—at least my active part,—the passive having possibly more of trial in it. When my books are out I will satisfy your kind wish of reading something new of mine, by sending them to you. [2] I believe .. am I right in believing; that you know my ‘Seraphim’ volume, in which according to my own view of myself, as well as by the opinion of others, I broke my shell, & came out, however unworthily & weakly, yet in my own nature & individuality. The present volumes have, I hope & believe, some farther advance of life & strength in them. Poetry is more to me than ever, .. & dearer .. & (in an earthly sense) it is a vital organ left to me to breathe with.
No, my dearest Angela, .. the dedication of Miss Martineau’s beautiful book was not to me—& both she & I have had to say so again & again, the imputation having done me much general honour. The dedicatee is however older both in years & illness, than I am; & her name I do not know—it is Miss Martineau’s own secret, & kept safe, I understand, from her most intimate friends. Dear Miss Martineau with whom I have had some correspondence since a year, lingers on in a condition which she herself considers hopeless, but which is hoped over by her physicians, in consequence of the capability of endurance she has given proof of.
Dearest Angela, .. I am writing you to death! I am ashamed too of my “Is” (not eyes) & “mes,” all through this letter,—only it is not so much my fault as your interrogativeness.
Does dear Mr Owen remember me? and might I send him my love in all cousinship? At any rate I shall be guilty of the impropriety of sending a kiss to your sons, to be divided amongst them. I asked many questions about dear Emily, [3] but cd not hear much. It is delightful to know, on the other hand, that your beloved mother is looking better than she has been seen to look for years (so Arabel told me) & that Clara [4] has her own sunshiny smile again. I did not infer from your former expressions that she had been so ill as you say now she has been. May God be praised for our joyful blessings. When will the time come in which we shall praise Him for our griefs as for blessings of the chiefest order?
Your always affectionate
cousin & friend
Ba–
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Wellesley College.
1. The bracketed passage is interpolated above the line.
2. This copy of Poems (1844) is now in the possession of John Owen (see Reconstruction, C81).
3. Emily Butler (née Bayford, b. 1806), Angela’s sister.
4. Clara Sophia Bayford (b. 1811), later Mrs. Martin Lindsay (1846), another of Angela’s sisters.
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